As Carl Sagan wrote, if I claimed that I had an invisible dragon living in my garage, should the burden of proof be on you, the disbeliever, to prove me wrong? Similarly, I could claim all sorts of reasons for you not being able to disprove my claim that I have such a dragon. That doesn't mean that I'm not really deluding myself into believing in my dragon.
Atheism does not mean a blanket denial of God. It means a lack of belief in gods. I have found that the main reason why people are atheists is because God to them is irrational, and more importantly, irrelevant. One could label me an atheist, but I don't use that term precisely because it makes no difference to me whether God exists or not. However, the existence and work of the FDA, the local water authority, and other such entities are important to me. Your essay is thus flawed in the respect that the author makes a false analogy.